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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

CDC: 56 Percent of MT Teens Text and Drive

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Friday, June 13, 2014   

HELENA, Mont. - Teens in Montana and throughout the nation were quizzed about their behavior and lifestyle choices for the latest Youth Risk Behavior survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The survey showed teen smoking has dropped below the target level of 16 percent. But that victory is tempered by the number of young people nationally, 41 percent, who admit to texting or e-mailing while driving. In Montana, that rate is about 56 percent.

Stephanie Zaza, director of the division of adolescent and school health at the CDC, urged parents to step in to stop any behavior that takes a teen's attention away from the road.

"Parents play an active role in keeping their teen drivers safe," said Zaza, "by close monitoring, frequent discussions, parent-teen driving agreements and acting as a role model of good driving habits."

The CDC reported that car crashes are the single biggest killer of teens and young adults, causing 23 percent of deaths among 10-to-24-year-olds.

Tom Frieden, CDC Director, said the smoking reduction numbers are a fragile victory, because of the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes, smoking pens and electronic hookahs, as well as a lack of regulations for those products.

"We're particularly concerned with e-cigarettes re-glamorizing smoking traditional cigarettes," said Frieden, "maybe making it more complicated to enforce smoke-free laws that protect all nonsmokers."

The study also found that teens are drinking fewer sodas and less alcohol. They're also getting into fewer fights, but condom use has also become less common, and most teens are still not eating a balanced diet. While most young people are spending fewer hours watching television, they've replaced it with time spent before a computer beyond school reasons.

Read more about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Youth Risk Behavior survey.


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